‘For a time,’ Mrs. Tracy added, with her bland smile, taking his hand in both hers,--‘till our meeting again.’ And Mary, whose feelings all this time had been more overwhelming than can be described, and who had followed mechanically, with an instinct of being there to the last to see what direful harm might happen, stood passive by his side, not knowing if she were in a trance or a dream; and saw the boat push off into the shining river. Mrs. Tracy turned and waved her hand to them, bland to the last. But Millicent never turned her head. Once only, just as the boat shot past the long drooping branches of the willow which closed in the view, she looked round sharply and saw them; and the rowlocks sounded hollow and loud, and with another stroke the boat was gone. Neither of them have ever seen that beautiful face again. Ben stood for some time after they had disappeared on the same spot, forgetting everything, gazing out upon the vacant stream and vacant sunshine, in a curious vacant way. If it had been put to him, he would never have confessed how much moved he had been. Perhaps he was himself unconscious of it. But nature made a pause in him, manifesting the convulsion, in her own way, when this woman, who had influenced it so strangely, passed for ever out of his life. ‘Are you fond of Coleridge, Mary?’ he said to her without any preface, quite suddenly, as they went up the steep bank. ‘Of Coleridge, Ben? What an odd question! Why do you ask?’ ‘Do you remember what he says? And what a curious sense he had of the things that are inexpressible,-- ‘How there looked him in the face An angel beautiful and bright, And how he knew--‘ ‘No, I don’t mean that,--not so bad as that!’ ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Mary, with a little shiver; and she took hold of his arm with an instinctive desire to show him her sympathy. Very well did she know what he meant; or at least thought, hoped she did; but denied it with characteristic readiness. He pressed the soft, sisterly hand to him when he felt it on his arm. Certainly, there was a great sympathy between them, though nothing more. And he did not say another word to her of the subject of the conversation which this last meeting had blotted out as if it had never been. They did not talk of anything, indeed, but went home together, with a silent understanding of each other in which there was certainly some balm.